Welcome to the summary of September! While the leaves may change, our dedication to improving Sylius remains steadfast. This month, we’ve been focusing on implementing valuable feedback and releasing alpha versions of Sylius 2.0. Our team hosted and visited many eCommerce events, and new Sylius-based projects went live. To help you navigate through our September summary, we’ve prepared a concise breakdown below:
Let’s begin the September’s summary! ⬇️
September marked a major leap forward for Sylius as we released two significant alpha versions of Sylius 2.0. On September 19th, we introduced v2.0.0-ALPHA.1, followed closely by v2.0.0-ALPHA.2 on September 24th. These releases bring us closer to the stable release 2.0, with Symfony 7 support, BootstrapShop, and API Platform 3 updates being standout features. Both alphas focused on laying the groundwork for a more robust, efficient platform while continuing to refine the user experience and API capabilities.
In addition to the releases, we implemented several important changes across multiple repositories to improve functionality, fix bugs, and ensure compatibility with the latest frameworks. Below is a detailed breakdown of the key updates and improvements introduced in the past month.
These changes mark significant progress toward the stable release of Sylius 2.0, ensuring that the platform is both powerful and ready for future developments.
The holiday break certainly helped to recharge the batteries of our contributors. 🔋
We can’t wait for the upcoming launch of the Sylius 2.0 version. This major update, seven years after the release of version 1.0, represents a significant evolution of our open-source eCommerce platform. Sylius 2.0 introduces a modern, UX-optimized admin panel and shop user interface built with Bootstrap, enhancing aesthetics and usability. We’ve added support for Symfony UX and Twig Hooks, offering our developers more flexibility. A key improvement is our upgrade to API Platform 3, stabilizing and expanding our API interfaces.
We want to emphasize that version 2.0 is an evolution rather than a revolution, allowing for smoother upgrades from 1.x versions. Our upcoming alpha release will introduce Symfony 7 support and a new Payment Requests feature to replace the aging Payum library. We’re planning to release the stable version of Sylius 2.0 at the time of our next SyliusCon event, accompanied by expanded AI-driven documentation and a new developer course.
This update represents a collaborative effort from our team, contributors, and commercial clients, and we’re confident it will take Sylius to new heights. Thank you for your support. 💙
With less than a month left until SyliusCon 2024, excitement is building for the biggest event in the Sylius ecosystem, taking place on November 13 in Lyon, France, at the Centre Congrès de Lyon.
The event will feature insightful talks from over 20 speakers, presentations, and networking opportunities with experienced developers from the Sylius community. Naturally, we will also host a before/after party. 🍻
Whether you’re looking to deepen your technical knowledge, explore new business opportunities, or meet with our team, SyliusCon 2024 is the place to be.
Given the number of details and insightful presentations, we gather all essential information about the event in our blog. Here, you can also find information on how to get to the event and where to stay. 😴
Sylius has just hit an exciting milestone – 100,000 installations in the past 30 days! To put that into perspective, our peak over the last year was around 80,000, marking a significant 20% increase. Although this surge is most probably linked to the release of Sylius 2.0, we are confident that the new major release is just the beginning of an upward trend. We’re thrilled to see the community’s enthusiasm growing stronger with each update! 🤝
Now, let’s examine the recently completed projects closely to demonstrate how Sylius powers modern eCommerce stores.
The public transportation operator for the Toulouse region, Tisséo Voyageurs, partnered with our Premium Solution Partner EMAGMA to undertake a comprehensive redesign of their eCommerce system using Sylius. The goal was to improve functionality and enhance the user experience for purchasing transportation passes, managing subscriptions, and accessing various services. The new platform, centered around the user, provides an intuitive and seamless interface, making it easier for customers to interact with the service. Sylius’s customization capabilities enabled EMAGMA to tailor the platform to meet Tisséo’s specific needs, including implementing an advanced pricing system, integrating Sylius with the Tisséo information system, and automating key processes. The focus on automation has simplified operations, reducing the manual workload and allowing the system to function more efficiently.
The redesign also emphasized accessibility, ensuring that users can easily access the platform on any device, providing greater convenience for all customers.
Read the full case study on EMAGMA’s website.
Ibis decided to cooperate with Uran development company to help them modernize their outdated website. The key challenge for the company was to improve the SEO performance and user experience to separate the website for regular users from those focused on specific products. To address this, Uran Company implemented a Sylius eCommerce platform with a separate backend, modernizing the site and enhancing its performance. Key features include a unified login system and a universal order confirmation process with split payment options and customized shipping rules for certain products.
These improvements boosted site speed and SEO while also delivering a modern, user-friendly experience that supports all customer types.
A detailed case study is available on Uran’s website.
The API Platform Conference on September 19-20 was certainly a great time spent expanding the knowledge and tightening relationships in the eCommerce ecosystem. Attendees had the opportunity to learn about the latest advancements in API technologies and best practices for creating scalable, efficient eCommerce solutions.
Emil Janiszewski, our Country Manager in France, represented Sylius and met our partners along with other wonderful people at the event, as we will highlight in the further social media part 😄.
In collaboration with our partner Nordcode, we hosted a successful meetup in Vilnius on September 18, attracting around 40 attendees from the local Sylius community. The event featured a presentation by our Strategic Partnerships Manager, Przemysław Połeć, who provided valuable insights into the upcoming Sylius 2.0 release, highlighting its key features and offering guidance on preparing for the upgrade. Additionally, Edita and Domas from Nordcode discussed their experiences with large-scale, custom projects.
We extend our gratitude to Nordcode for co-organizing this event and to all participants for their engaging questions and discussions, which contributed to a highly informative gathering.
eCom Expo 2024 in Vilnius, Lithuania, was one of the biggest Lithuanian eCommerce events. It showcased cutting-edge eCommerce technologies and solutions, speeches from industry leaders, insights about the Baltic eCommerce market, and, of course, a great occasion for networking with like-minded people. In other words, a day filled with knowledge and joy.
For those who attended the Sylius Community Meetup the previous day, EcomExpo 2024 was a perfect extension to their eCommerce trip, where Przemysław Połeć and representatives from Nordcode were also present.
PHPers Wrocław was the 21st edition of the event, gathering PHP enthusiasts from all over the country. During the event, our CEO, Mikołaj Król, discussed the most crucial differences between the three most popular PHP eCommerce solutions: Shopware, Sylius, and Magento. He covered key architectural distinctions, compared their communities, shared static code analysis, demonstrated performance metrics, and much more!
Did you miss the presentation? We’ve got you covered. Watch Mikołaj’s presentation on our YouTube channel. 🍿
On October 16, BitBag, in partnership with Sylius and Ergonode PIM, will host an insightful webinar for the Polish-speaking IT community. This 90-minute event, starting at 12:00 PM GMT, will feature industry experts Przemysław Połeć, Radosław Żurawski, and Kamil Niedziewicz as they delve into the advantages of PIM systems over traditional eCommerce platforms in managing product data.
The webinar will cover a comprehensive range of topics, including the evolution of PIM solutions, how integration can enhance sales and marketing across multiple markets, and the specific advantages Ergonode offers over Sylius in data management. Apart from that, the attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a live Q&A session following the presentation.
Register at the webinar’s website.
We are extremely happy that our long-term friend, SuluCMS, became an official Sylius technology partner! This collaboration has evolved from a long-standing friendship that began at SymfonyLive 2015. The partnership is built on successful joint projects, including implementations for Mofakult and Brille24.
As both platforms are built on Symfony and share an open-source approach, this partnership promises to combine Sylius’ capabilities with Sulu’s content management to offer an integrated solution for online retailers.
It’s worth noting that Sulu CMS has recently surpassed 1 million downloads on GitHub, demonstrating the strength of their community and technology. 💪
Next part of a Magento, Shopware, and Sylius comparison (CE)
Moving on, we released a continuation of the Magento, Shopware, and Sylius comparisons. This part focused on performance, measuring the speed of read/write actions such as loading the product index/show page, adding 450 products to the cart, processing the checkout, etc. Check out the insightful results in Mikołaj’s post and Erwin’s post. 📊
Our community keeps enriching the online sphere with valuable articles and guides. See if something catches your eye:
Happily to our sight, social media are blooming with activity. As many of the posts revolved around the API Platform Conference, we will begin with a subsection devoted to that topic.
Recently, our devoted community developed many new plugins for the Sylius platform, including five new plugins from just one developer. We are extremely grateful for all your contributions. They give us a ton of motivation to push forward and do our best to improve the platform further. 💙
Let’s begin with Ayman Benmada, who released FIVE new plugins 🚀:
Management of back-office colors and the ability to define multiple logos per channel. This feature allows customization of various visual elements (logo in the header, footer, login page, back office, etc.).
Added export functionality for each entity (existing or new). This export can be easily configured via YAML files, allowing for quick implementation.
Implementation of a media library, facilitating the upload of any type of file. Files can then be reused in any form, avoiding the need to upload them multiple times and optimizing disk space usage.
Sylius Multi-Factor Authentication Plugin
A multi-factor authentication (2FA) system which can be enabled for both the back office and the e-shop to enhance connection security.
Management of content translations in the back office by channel. Each channel has its own locales; the idea is to prioritize the channel’s translation. If it doesn’t exist, the generic translation is used, and as a last resort, the YAML file translation is applied.
Apart from that, our Premium Solution Partner, Monsieur Biz, released two new plugins: 🔥
This plugin allows you to disable the eCommerce features in Sylius while still retaining all the CMS-related capabilities. It’s useful for projects where a full eCommerce experience isn’t needed, but content management remains essential.
Sylius Contact Request Plugin enables a contact request system in Sylius, allowing customers to send inquiries through a form. It provides a simple and efficient way for businesses to manage and respond to customer requests directly from the back office as well as personalize the contact page.
Although the days get colder, we are warmed by your unwavering commitment and support. We’re doing everything we can to refine every detail in Sylius 2.0. It’s been truly inspiring to see so many of you at various events and conferences throughout the year. Your enthusiasm and insights shared during these meetups continue to fuel our passion.
See you next month! 👋
